Mainlining Christmas

There are only a handful of movies and specials that we've watched over the years that Erin and I have felt strongly enough about to review separately. Elf is one of those films. I don't like it much ; Erin does . Now I can embrace my dislike of the movie more than I allowed myself to in that article because I have seen what the story can be instead. It turns out, I like Elf a lot once you remove Will Ferrell, the more juvenile/gross humor, and the poor musical choices. You know the story more or less, right? Human raised by elves goes to meet his father in New York, misunderstandings ensue, everyone learns the importance of family, love, and to be open to magic and wonder. In the touring production I saw this year at the Paramount Theater in Seattle, Buddy was played as sheltered but enthusiastic. He wasn't dumb; he wasn't the butt of every joke; he just didn't understand a lot about human society. And he was so dang genuine and kind that he won over eve

Erin talked a bit about our trip to Leavenworth already. I'm picking up the story at about 4:15 pm. We are on the east side of a very tall mountain, so it's getting dark. Neither of us quite expected the slush to be as thick as it was, so my feet are wet, and our hands are cold. We've been standing or walking for most of the last five hours. And we're making our way towards the crowds. Yeah, if we'd wanted a good view, we would have had to stand in the cold a lot longer than either of us were in the mood for at that point in the day. We staked out an okay spot, and waited. And waited. And tried to hear what was going on. There was some singing, and some speeches, and finally Santa! Yeah, I know, a little bit of an anticlimax. Next, if I recall the series of events correctly, some people played alphorns , which was pretty cool, although I could barely hear them. Then it was time for, according to the description of this event in the flye

Even though the stated policy wasn't "no photos", but rather "No Flash Photography", and plenty of people even ignored that, I only took a small handful of pictures at The Radio City Christmas Spectacular. Just enough to give you a taste. In the lobby, when we came in, we were greeted by this: It has to be at least 15 feet tall, it spins, and all of the little crystals are snowflakes.  Here's the stage from our seats in the mezzanine: And here I'm looking sideways across the mezzanine itself: I took a few shots of one of the numbers I loved most: Christmas in NYC The Rockettes rode the bus in choreographed fashion and eventually changed their costumes for the finale of the sequence. The Multiple Santa number was cute, but very odd: and the Living Nativity was damn impressive. I mean, look: Cool, right? Lots of people and bright costumes coordinated together, and there are live camels. I mean, not as cool a

Right now, Lindsay's sitting beside me on the train back to Queens, typing her love letter to the Radio City Christmas Spectacular. I can appreciate that reaction. But mine was perhaps more... complicated. The Radio City Christmas Spectacular was, I think, the best and the worst thing I've ever seen. It was madness. It may be the last surviving vestige of vaudeville; this is a show which has lasted since the 1930's. But make no mistake: it paid a horrible price for survival. It sold its soul to Christmas. The show is a blur of dancers in skimpy outfits being pimped by a fat man in red while multi-colored lights and projections of the New York City skyline whirl by. And then the 3D glasses come out. A mother and her daughter learn the true meaning of Christmas by hunting digital Christmas fairies and blasting them with holiday cheer. The Rockettes dress as reindeer, Christmas presents, and - worst of all - tourists in a series of dances masquerading as family enter

OMG! THAT WAS AWESOME! I mean, it was awesomely weird, and awesomely impressive, as well as awesomely awesome. The Radio City Christmas Spectacular may be the most purely Christmas thing I've seen ever . It was entirely made up of shiny shiny sparkly things, spectacle, and ridiculousness. I loved it, in case you didn't notice. From the first number, in which the lovely Rockettes danced impressively in some disturbingly sexy reindeer costumes... and then their antlers LIT UP , I knew I was going to like this. There were low points, of course; the 3d movie of Santa's sleigh was pretty corny, the all-teddy bear Nutcracker had moments, but went on too long, and there was one awkwardly heartfelt song that was just boring given what had come before it. However, since nearly every odd or out-of place moment was clearly a vamp so that the Rockettes could change their costume, I can't judge too harshly. Besides which, the Rockettes got to star in a 'video game&